The basic compound of Herceptin was not patentable in India. A later patent was granted (and in fact Roche had lost a patent in europe in 2010). Roche filed a series of additional secondary/divisional patents, in India, then didn't show up for several hearings or present data in the time allocated. (Procedural lapses.)

But it's so easy to club this with other "ooh patent rejected lawfully in India" stories, without acknowledging the drivers behind the law or typical drug company practices given a free hand in the US.

But health advocates say similar arguments were made by the United States government and the pharmaceutical industry as they sought to protect patents on AIDS medicines through much of the 1990s, a stance that former President Bill Clinton has since said he regrets. It would be unfair to delay improving access to cancer drugs until India’s broken system for cancer care was fixed, they say. They note that more than twice as many people in India die of cancer than of AIDS.